Indians must return to their old roots on diet. Both nature and humankind will be better off

The Supreme Court recently issued a directive to ensure that all States set up a committee for slaughterhouses within a month. It is part of the effort to monitor abattoirs.

But the very practice of butchering creatures for pleasure and gain is antithetical to the Indic worldview. Dominance of the utilitarian principle in economics ensures optimum use of living species for profit. Colonial rule over a long period introduced the malaise into India, with post-independence rulers carrying on with the Raj legacy.

The Chinese Buddhist monk Fa-Hien, who visited northern India in the early fifth century AD, stated in A Record of Buddhist Kingdoms, Being an Account by the Chinese Monk Fa-Hien of his Travels in India and Ceylon in Search of the Buddhist Books of Discipline: “In India, except for Chandals, nobody indulges in violence against animals or consumes liquor or other intoxicants. No one trades in live animals. There are no shops in the entire country which sell liquor or meat. Only the Chandals indulge in hunting or consuming meat and liquor”.

Chandals were people that lived outside the social fold because they deployed living creatures for food and commerce. They also disposed of remains of the dead. Modern civilisation rests on such moorings.

Worldwide lobbying against flesh-based diet has received a boost from a recent report, prepared by eminent water scientists. Malik Falkenmark and his colleagues from the Stockholm International Water Institute predict in their study that by 2050, acute water scarcity would compel the world to turn vegetarian. There would then be just enough water to support five per cent protein intake, derived from animals. People currently source about 20 per cent protein from animal-based food. The projected human population for that time being nine billion, the pressure to feed the additional two billion would take a heavy toll on existing water resources. The warning needs to be clubbed with forecasts of an impending food crisis by the United Nations and Oxfam.

This, of course, is the utilitarian reason for shunning animal protein. Processing and production of such food entails five to 10 times more use of water than a vegetarian diet, with an estimated one- third of arable land diverted to growing food for animals, meant for slaughter.

Other arguments against animal protein hinge on the health hazards posed by such diet, and green house gas emissions by livestock and poultry, magnifying global warming to an alarming degree. Given below is a relevant excerpt from a 2009 scientific study, titled Comparing environmental impacts for lifestyle products: A review of life cycle assessments, prepared by Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

“The total agricultural sector emits around 25 to 32 per cent of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Crops emit 14 per cent... and all livestock emit 11 to-18 per cent, depending on how emissions are attributed... The emissions from livestock can be divided roughly as 30 per cent methane from enteric fermentation, 30 per cent nitrous oxide from manure management and 40 per cent from carbon dioxide from land-use changes for grazing and feed production... the dairy sector is responsible for roughly 27 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions from livestock... while monogastric production (pigs/poultry) is responsible for 10 to 20 per cent of the livestock emissions... Even if beef cattle represent 50 to 60 per cent of livestock emissions, this translates roughly into a figure close to 30 to 35 per cent of all agricultural emissions... What is true is that of all livestock products, beef is the most inefficient in terms of greenhouse gas emissions produced per unit of product, especially compared to dairy and monogastrics”.

Beef production, as compared to other livestock products, adds most to greenhouse gas emissions. But neither this fact nor outbreak of mad cow disease in the West, with the UK being most badly hit, has managed to change dietary habits to a substantial degree. It is a fatal neuro-degenerative ailment, transmitted to humans as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, if they consume infected beef. The disease erupted after cattle, which are naturally herbivore, were fed remains of other livestock. The abnormal fallout of going against nature led to millions of cattle being eradicated in the UK after the malady was diagnosed in the late 1980s. Despite the beef industry’s claims of rigorous quality control, reports have filtered out of BSE cases in North America.

The link between myriad degenerative diseases and factory farming of livestock and poultry is now well known. John Robbins, spurning his legacy of the ice cream empire Baskin Robbins, has penned some revealing books, notably Diet for a New America that unveils the gruesome truth about the meat industry and severe repercussions for mankind, animals and environment; and The Food Revolution, triggering fierce rebuttals by opponents of his uncompromising advocacy of diet that is plant-based and organic. Given these facts, India too must revert to its roots in terms of diet, and regard for life and nature.

A well-known Catholic priest who hosts a weekly religious television show said in an interview this week that child sex abusers are often seduced by teenage boys and should not go to jail on a first offense. But the comments were removed by the website that published them and replaced by an apology from the priest and the site's editors.

The Rev. Benedict Groeschel, 79, who hosts a weekly show on the Catholic television network EWTN, originally made the comments in an interview with the National Catholic Register. He also referred to convicted pedophile Jerry Sandusky as a "poor guy."

Fatherbenedict.com

Father Benedict Groeschel, founder of the Franciscan Friars... View Full Size

"People have this picture in their minds of a person planning to -- a psychopath. But that's not the case. Suppose you have a man having a nervous breakdown, and a youngster comes after him. A lot of the cases, the youngster -- 14, 16, 18 -- is the seducer," Groeschel was quoted as saying in the interview, which is no longer available on the paper's website.

"I apologize for my comments," it said. "I did not intend to blame the victim. A priest (or anyone else) who abuses a minor is always wrong and is always responsible. My mind and my way of expressing myself are not as clear as they used to be. I have spent my life trying to help others the best that I could. I deeply regret any harm I have caused to anyone."

Jeanette R. De Melo, the site's editor in chief, included her own apology for posting the interview.

"Child sexual abuse is never excusable," she wrote. "The editors of the National Catholic Register apologize for publishing without clarification or challenge Father Benedict Groeschel's comments that seem to suggest that the child is somehow responsible for abuse. Nothing could be further from the truth."

The interview, billed as a reflection on the 25 years since Groeschel founded the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal order, covered many topics, but Groeschel's comments on child sexual abuse brought it national attention.

"Well, it's not so hard to see. A kid looking for a father and didn't have his own -- and they won't be planning to get into heavy-duty sex, but almost romantic, embracing, kissing, perhaps sleeping, but not having intercourse or anything like that. I's an understandable thing, and you know where you find it, among other clergy or important people; you look at teachers, attorneys, judges, social workers," Groeschel was quoted as saying.

Quotes from the interview remained posted on websites including theNational Catholic Reporter, the Huffington Post, and the Catholic blog Renew America, all of which criticized Groeschel for the remarks.

Tom Roberts of the National Catholic Reporter called the comments "particularly disturbing" because of Groeschel's background in psychology. He received a Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia University.

"(The comments) cannot stand unchallenged," Roberts wrote.

Groeschel could not be reached for comment. Representatives for the National Catholic Register and EWTN did not immediately return calls for comment.

Groeschel had also commented on recently-convicted pedophile Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State coach convicted of abusing 10 boys over a 15-year period.

"Here's this poor guy -- Sandusky -- it went on for years. Interesting: Why didn't anyone say anything? Apparently, a number of kids knew about it and didn't break the ice. Well, you know, until recent years, people did not register in their minds that it was a crime. It was a moral failure, scandalous; but they didn't think of it in terms of legal things," Groeschel said.

He also said that he did not think priests or lay people should go to jail based on a first offense of sexual behavior with young children.

"At this point, (when) any priest, any clergyman, any social worker, any teacher, any responsible person in society would become involved in a single sexual act -- not necessarily intercourse -- they're done. And I'm inclined to think, on their first offense, they should not go to jail because their intention was not committing a crime."

Prominent Priest Defended Child Sex Abusers

said in an interview this week that child sex abusers are often seduced by teenage boys and should not go to jail on a first offense. But the comments were removed by the website that published them and replaced by an apology from the priest and the site's editors.

The Rev. Benedict Groeschel

, 79, who hosts a weekly show on the Catholic television network EWTN, originally made the comments in an interview with the National Catholic Register. He also referred to convicted pedophile Jerry Sandusky as a "poor guy."

"People have this picture in their minds of a person planning to -- a psychopath. But that's not the case. Suppose you have a man having a nervous breakdown, and a youngster comes after him. A lot of the cases, the youngster -- 14, 16, 18 -- is the seducer," Groeschel was quoted as saying in the interview, which is no longer available on the paper's website.

"I apologize for my comments," it said. "I did not intend to blame the victim. A priest (or anyone else) who abuses a minor is always wrong and is always responsible. My mind and my way of expressing myself are not as clear as they used to be. I have spent my life trying to help others the best that I could. I deeply regret any harm I have caused to anyone."

Jeanette R. De Melo, the site's editor in chief, included her own apology for posting the interview.

"Child sexual abuse is never excusable," she wrote. "The editors of the National Catholic Register apologize for publishing without clarification or challenge Father Benedict Groeschel's comments that seem to suggest that the child is somehow responsible for abuse. Nothing could be further from the truth."

The interview, billed as a reflection on the 25 years since Groeschel founded the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal order, covered many topics, but Groeschel's comments on child sexual abuse brought it national attention.

"Well, it's not so hard to see. A kid looking for a father and didn't have his own -- and they won't be planning to get into heavy-duty sex, but almost romantic, embracing, kissing, perhaps sleeping, but not having intercourse or anything like that. I's an understandable thing, and you know where you find it, among other clergy or important people; you look at teachers, attorneys, judges, social workers," Groeschel was quoted as saying.

Quotes from the interview remained posted on websites including the National Catholic Reporter, the Huffington Post, and the Catholic blog Renew America, all of which criticized Groeschel for the remarks.

Tom Roberts of the National Catholic Reporter called the comments "particularly disturbing" because of Groeschel's background in psychology. He received a Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia University.

"(The comments) cannot stand unchallenged," Roberts wrote.

Groeschel could not be reached for comment. Representatives for the National Catholic Register and EWTN did not immediately return calls for comment.

Groeschel had also commented on recently-convicted pedophile Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State coach convicted of abusing 10 boys over a 15-year period.

"Here's this poor guy -- Sandusky -- it went on for years. Interesting: Why didn't anyone say anything? Apparently, a number of kids knew about it and didn't break the ice. Well, you know, until recent years, people did not register in their minds that it was a crime. It was a moral failure, scandalous; but they didn't think of it in terms of legal things," Groeschel said.

He also said that he did not think priests or lay people should go to jail based on a first offense of sexual behavior with young children.

"At this point, (when) any priest, any clergyman, any social worker, any teacher, any responsible person in society would become involved in a single sexual act -- not necessarily intercourse -- they're done. And I'm inclined to think, on their first offense, they should not go to jail because their intention was not committing a crime."

• Earlier this month, a federal appeals court ruled that the government may carry on warrantless wiretapping on Americans without fear of being sued, Wired reported. Now the American lawyers whose conversations with their clients in Saudi Arabia were wiretapped are asking the court to hear the case again, this time with 11 judges instead of three. In a filing this week, again according to Wired, the lawyers’ lawyer wrote: “Whether the federal government can violate FISA with impunity is a question of exceptional importance to the nation.” The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act requires court approval for wiretapping but was amended in 2008 to legalize a warrantless-wiretapping program started by the Bush administration after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Also Thursday, the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation sued the Department of Justice, asking it to release information regarding allegations reportedly made public by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., that the National Security Agency’s spying is going beyond what the FISA Amendment Act permits.

“It’s time for the government to come clean and tell us about the NSA’s unconstitutional actions,” EFF Open Government Legal Fellow Mark Rumold said in a press release.

• Then there’s the use of software to track dissidents instead of fight crime. The New York Times reports about FinSpy, an elusive — hard to detect by antivirus software — surveillance tool that can log keystrokes, grab computer-screen images, record chats and more. It has reportedly been found in servers in countries such as Turkmenistan, Brunei and Bahrain, which have been accused of human-rights abuses. The software is supposedly sold only to track criminals, says the British company that sells it, but has been found to be tracking activists.

• CNN has a story on how the police use social media and other technology to track crime, how social networks cooperate or in some cases resist, and the constitutional questions that arise from these practices. While some criminals rat themselves out because they overshare on social networks, the story also talks about how some police set up fake profiles to nab criminals. Fake profiles are against Facebook rules, but in some cases the evidence gathered in this way can still “hold up” in court, according to the article.

• And finally, Apple this week reportedly was granted a patent on a feature that brings up interesting issues: the ability to disable phone and video functions on a mobile device depending on location. When the New York Times wrote about the patent in June, the article focused on how this feature could help the entertainment industry, which prohibits filming of concerts or movies. But the feature does limit key functionality on a device one buys and expects to use freely. And who would decide when cameras and videos would be disabled? Boing Boing’s Mark Frauenfelder writes: “The paranoid side of me imagines governments using it to prevent citizens from communicating with each other or taking video during protests.”

Ahmedabad serial blasts: Mujib Shaikh planted bomb near tuition class

In a horrifying disclosure that will surely give you the goose bumps, one of the accused in the Ahmedabad serial blasts case of July 2008, Mujib Shaikh, has confessed of planting a bomb near a tution class so as to kill kids and add as many figures to the casualty list. Mujib confessed before police that he had chosen Maninagar crossroads as one of the spots to plant a bomb to target children who come for their tuitions daily at a complex located there.

Shaikh, a resident of Juhapura area, is one of the main accused in the serial blasts case. He was in custody of Madhya Pradesh police, but Ahmedabad DCB won his custody after getting a transfer warrant from the court recently.

Shaikh was the one who had purchased inventory used in making the operation successful. He was also the brain behind selecting locations for planting the bombs.

Shaikh had personally visited the two spots chosen near Maninagar crossroads and had also assisted Shakeel Nishar to plant the bomb at one place and Zeeshan Ahmed at the other.

According to police, Shaikh had selected both the spots as they were also in close proximity of stalls vending paan-gutkha and tea, thus increasing their potential to inflict as many casualties as possible. According to police, Shaikh has told them that after having planted the bombs he reached Kalupur Railway Station to catch a train for Delhi.

No account and analysis of performing arts would be complete without taking into consideration the backbone and the science of all performing arts genres, the Natya Shastra. Dr. Bharat Gupt, retired Associate Professor of English at the College of Vocational Studies, University of Delhi, during his visit to Kolkata recently, discussed the contents of the compendium on Indian arts attributed to legendary author Bharata.

He spoke of its applicability, together with its modern relevance in the arts, including filmmaking and television, stressing on the significance of “Natya” and “Shastra “.

Gupt, a well known Indian classicist, theatre theorist, sitar and surbahar player, musicologist, cultural analyst and newspaper columnist, has worked extensively with the Natya Shastra and his path breaking research has been a comparison of Indian classical and Greek theatres.

Gupt mentions that there are many forms of entertainment today, but as in theatre, music and other arts, “all our ways of thoughts have greatly changed in the last 150 or 200 years.”

They would not have changed as much over such a period in earlier times, he reasons, “and therefore we have also developed some kind of a disconnect with our past. For instance what does natya mean? Is natya only natak? Natya is something that comes out of a nat. Who is a nat ? A nat is somebody who is able to speak to you through his or her total polish — through angik, vachik, aharya, satvik (means of expression) and by all the subtle expressions of movements of hands and body of any kind. Then a dancer, a poet is also a nat, a film actor like Amitabh Bachchan is also a nat and Bhimsen Joshi is also a nat. So all those people who present something to a set of listeners or audience using the four genres is a nat. The Indian definition of Natya therefore is not just drama, not just music, theatre or poetry, it is everything, all of it together and therefore whatever activity the nat does is Natya.”

The second word, “Shastra”, he explains elaborately with reference to our country. “Shastram iti sashanopayam” Shashtra is a method, a way of doing something and achieving the result. He explains the lack of methodology and governance in our country and how everything is under “supreme confusion and there is nosashanopayam, and that’s why we are not achieving anything. There are disasters one after another.”

Gupt expresses disappointment that modern education has made us think that shastras written in Sanskrit are forms of “backwardness” and for pundits only and “several generations have been raised to look down upon the classical texts, particularly the Shastras or Smritis, and because we lost the system of thinking logically we are in a confusion. This confusion prevails not only in politics but in artistic life also.”

For human beings to be “effective”, and for their actions to become “predictable”, there has to be a “connection between an action and the reward,” says the scholar. “Shastra is that methodology which ensures that when you do these things in such a manner then the result will be ensured. There will be ‘siddhi’. The audience will be pleased, the Gods will be pleased and the art would have succeeded. So that is Shastra. Hence the two words Natya Shastra. So the method of achieving an effective performance, predictable performance, in the field of any performing area is Natya Shastra,” Gupt establishes.

“The Natyashastra is a very clear science and included various performing arts which today are separated. There are 36 chapters and it is the first text which talks about each of the arts in a fundamental manner laying down the principles of the art,” he says. “The Natya Shastra tellskathaswhose inner meanings rest on the fact that a performance is not just for one set of people, it has to be for all, unlike the ‘A’ category films now.”

Similarly, he says, “Great Indian films in the late ’60s and ’70s were for all. Now they are only for rickshaw-wallahs. Today the box-office means something else. Or they are for certain categories. There are no samachar on the television, onlydurachar.”

American farmers apply so much fertilizer on Midwestern corn fields that
much of it ends up running off, ending up in the Mississippi River and,
ultimately, reaching the Gulf of Mexico. There the copious fertilizer
fuels a bloom of algae and other microscopic plants that then die.
Microbes that consume the dead plants also use all the oxygen available
in surrounding waters, creating a vast "dead zone" that is devoid of sea life—an unfortunate side effect of the demand for more maize.

A JUNIOR software engineer in the DRDO and a journalist working for a leading local English daily
are among 11 people arrested by the Bangalore police in an alleged
terror plot to attack a Right-wing columnist in a prominent Kannada
daily, Hindu leaders and politicians. They were in regular touch
with Lashkar-e-Toiba and Harkat-ul-Jehadi-al-Islami operatives in
Saudi Arabia in connection with the alleged plot. Among them are Muthi-ur-Rehman Siddiqui, 26, a journalist who has
been with Deccan Herald for the last three years, Ejaz Mohammed Mirza,
25, a junior engineer in DRDO, his brother Shoaib Ahmed Mirza, 25, a
masters in computer applications, and Mohammed Yousuf Nalband, 28, an
electrician.
The others arrested from Bangalore are Abdullah alias Abdul Hakim Jamadar, 25 and Riyaz Ahmed Byahatti, 28. Among the arrested from Hubli are Obaidullah Imran Bahadur, 24,
Mohammed Sadiq Lashkar, 28, Waheed Hussain, 26, Mahaboob Bagalkote, 26,
and Dr Jaffar Iqbal Sholapur.

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

The exposure limit of radio frequency fields (base
station emissions) across the nation will be brought down to one-tenth of the existing
level from September 1. This comes in response to petitions in High
Courts and the Supreme Court on fears of health hazards from mobile
tower radiations.
The issue of mobile tower radiations causing cancer has been a cause for
concern to people across the country. In the past few months, members
of civil society and resident welfare associations across the nation
have been opposing the installation of new towers in their localities
and questioning the continuance of the existing ones.

Remarkable if something penetrated the thick fog of obfuscation these fellows inhabit.

Quick, take screenshot before the mafia take it down.

Sent from galaxy note

On Aug 30, 2012 7:24 AM, "sri wrote: > > Confessions of a troubled secularist > > http://www.asianage.com/columnists/confessions-troubled-secularist-053 > > Aug 23, 2012 > > Shiv Visvanathan > > If Muslims insist on speaking exclusively for Muslims and do not recognise Bodo suffering then theirs is an ethnic of narcissism > > This is an essay on secularism and the Indian Muslim. And I must admit the recent events have made this a difficult piece to write. Let me begin at the beginning. > > I was born in Jamshedpur where I saw riot after riot triggered in urban areas. I still remember the day in school when my classmate Obidul Islam came to say goodbye. He told me sadly that his family was going back to Pakistan. Obidul was a brilliant 100-metre runner and I am still unsuccessfully racing against him. > > As I grew older and watched the Mumbai 1992 riots and the Gujarat carnage of 2002, I saw with sadness how for the majority community, democracy tasted like castor oil, good for health but difficult to consume. While studying the Gujarat violence I saw how the community of Muslim survivors built a new citizenship around a community of law. I heard Mr Bandukwala, once professor of physics at Baroda University, tell the Hindus that even if you do not apologise I forgive you. Listening to all this I wondered what secularism meant. > > My secular friends practised a strange kind of casteism. In the aftermath of the riots they would talk to Muslims but stay away from Hindus who had also suffered. I found secularism becoming a form of ghettoisation where one community’s suffering was privileged over others. Worse, I found secularism empty and non-dialogic. It was catechism without a theology, a form of political correctness, where the Hosannas were the sons to the minority community and truth flew out of the window. > > Secularism, at least in terms of the relation of science to religion, is based on a false history. The battle between science and religion is a falsely constructed one. Tracts about the conflict between religion and science were published as a result of a struggle for power between scientists and theologians battling to control the modern university. They both wrote history backward, destroying the fact that religion and science have been reciprocally creative. > > I think Indian secularism cannot not engage with religion but must create a communicative relationship with it. I am reminded of the ending of an old movie, Inherit the Wind, where the hero, Clarence Darrow, picks up Darwin’s The Origin of Species and the Bible and holds them up as great books, each inspired by a different kind of truth. Secularism as dialogue insists on critique and this is what I am going to engage in. > > What happened in Mumbai, and is still happening, is atrocious. If Muslims are as rabid as Bal Thackeray, or Raj Thackeray, then one must say so. If Muslims insist on speaking exclusively for Muslims and do not recognise Bodo suffering then theirs is an ethnic of narcissism, and not a secular value. Unless Muslims realise that over a million Bodos have been displaced, the displacement of three million Muslims will make little sense. One man’s suffering cannot be the cause of another man’s celebration. This cannot be the secular way or the secular ethic. > > In our society, secularism has to be defined differently. It cannot be a battle between religion and science or separation between state and religion. Secularism is the way we respond to strangers. The stranger is the other who defines us. The first law of secularism should be hospitality. We welcome the other because he is not us. The other is the reminder that we are not complete as truths, that as fragments we need each other. The second law of secularism can be formulated after the Dalai Lama’s comment that George Bush’s behaviour “brings out the Muslim in him”. Similarly, after the Gujarat carnage I can say that Narendra Modi brings out the Muslim in me. It is a way of giving secular space a meaning where we become the other in their moment of suffering. Yet, our secularism allows for boundary walls. It realises that violence might come when identities are too close and separations are not maintained. Our secularism understands difference and distance creatively because our secularism is a theory > of diversity not homogeneity. > > As a human rights activist I have to be secular by definition. I cannot fight only for Hindus because I am a Hindu. But I fight for Muslims because I am a Hindu. My duty extends beyond my community because my rights also extend beyond it. The very dialogicity of this secularism demands that I challenge both Muslim fundamentalism and Hindu fanaticism. Our society has become fragile today because Muslim violence and exclusivity has become a problem. To criticise the Muslim is not to demonise them. It is to use the reciprocity of citizenship to mirror each other. We have to realise that a few more riots can change the very nature of > politics. > > I am writing this because I am concerned about the fate of democracy. The situation is tense and let’s not forget that Assam is the state with the second largest Muslim population in India. We need to understand that a coercive minoritarianism is as putrid as bully boy majoritarianism. The Muslim fanatic and the Hindu fundamentalist both threaten democracy and we need open ended democracy that challenges both. A Mulana Abdul Qadir Alvi is not an alternative to Raj Thackeray. He is merely a Muslim Modi with a skull cap. The danger is that a few riots can create an insecurity, a climate of hate that could bring a politician like Modi to power. This is a history that a secularist must seek to avoid. The current meaning of secularism is too narrow and impoverished. We have to reinvent words so that we understand the worlds we wish to live in. The pomposity of a narrow state-sponsored Western secularism is utterly useless in this new democratic battle. > > The writer is a social science nomad >

Ram Kishen, 52, half-blind and half- starved, holds in his gnarled hands the reason for his hunger: a tattered card entitling him to subsidized rations that now serves as a symbol of India’s biggest food heist.

In the wake of the torching of churches in Kenya's coastal city of Mombasa and grenade attacks on other churches around the country, Protestant leaders are trying a new tack to get more help from the government: they're suing.

Christian leaders say the targeting of churches with grenades, bombs...

But something different is happening now. “Instead of additional years of life being realized early in the life cycle, they are being realized late in life,” Stanford University economists Karen Eggleston and Victor Fuchs write in the cu …

But something different is happening now. “Instead of additional years of life being realized early in the life cycle, they are being realized late in life,” Stanford University economists Karen Eggleston and Victor Fuchs write in the cu …

Apple is an enormously wealthy and profitable company, we all know this. Sometimes, though, there’s a bit of context that really snaps it into crisp detail. One such observation was made earlier today by Counternotions on Twitter and shared on Mactrast.

(Reuters) - It was meant to be another night of music and dance, a brief distraction from life in the searing heat and dust of Afghanistan's conservative rural south for a small group of boys and girls in Helmand province's Roshan Abad village.

Hope people do not have short memories to remember such incidents in 2014. That is the time when the people of the country will get a chance to show that they will not be taken for granted and tolerate such unruly behaviour and shameful and inept handling.

Preserve this email and resend it to everyone of your contacts in 2014. Remember to use your franchise and use it wisely.

Monday, August 27, 2012

Fareed Zakaria’s apology was instant and unambiguous. Pit that against Barkha’s defiant non-apology. “I was gullible…I was
silly…I may have been innocent, I made an error of judgement. I am sorry
for that but that’s all…I’m not apologising for anything else.” She shall now live with the sword of doubt hanging
over her head because every time I see her the Radia tapes play in my
head. And I think she knows that.